Monday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Today Jesus challenges the apostles to have faith the size of a mustard seed. Earlier in Luke, in a parable, the Lord compares the same miniscule seed to the Kingdom of God. What’s all this about mustard seeds?
“The Kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and put in his own garden. It grew and became a large tree, and the birds of the sky lodged in its branches” (Lk 13:18-19).
Today the Lord might substitute the mustard plant, an invasive common weed, with our nefarious honeysuckle. Like mustard plants, honeysuckle unrelentingly reproduce and vigorously spread out in both rich soil and poor soil, maliciously threatening valuable plants. Now if he had said, “The Kingdom of God is like a cedar of Lebanon,” we could ooh and ah! But a big weed?
The mustard tree and the honeysuckle bush are threatening and invasive. So is the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom changes everything and is impossible to snuff out. Like honeysuckle, once it takes root, look out! The Kingdom of God is a subversive kingdom. The parable of the mustard seed is a subversive parable. Having faith the size of a mustard seed is a subversive faith.
In speaking about the dominion of God, Jesus was challenging the current dominant worldly power—Rome. There was but one reign and that was the reign of Cesar. To propose another was not only subversive, it was dangerous.
King Jesus vs. the emperor. A Galilean peasant vs. the lord and god Tiberius?
The caesars were proclaimed as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace, Savior of the world, Son of God. Sound familiar? They should. These very titles were applied to Jesus Christ.
Rome and all future Romes think themselves secure, but in truth their time is short. The kingdom Jesus came to bring has gotten into the nooks and crannies of the world. Dominant powers will succumb to those whom the world views as worthless and disposable.
The throwaways, the bottom feeders of society, those strewn in the human dump take first place. The only weapon used for the inevitable victory is the weapon of self-sacrificial love.
The Kingdom of nobodies will win out over all kingdoms of earthly glory. It’s just a matter of time. As soon as the powers-that-be think that they have snuffed it out, God’s reign pops up all over again. And so it ever shall be.
How are we planting mustard seeds, you and I?
-Timothy J. Cronin